Middle ground on May 1968 in France?

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/pcfs-role-may-t138705/index.html


Notwithstanding the PCF's reformist program, I'd like to ask exactly how in other aspects did the PCF sell out the French working class in May 1968, when considering that France did not have a genuinely revolutionary situation. Yes, there was mass hostility between the state and the workers, and there was a collapse in the French executive and bureaucracy, but there was no mass political party-movement organizing the wildcat strikes and gaining political support from the workers.

I don't know if this is a postscript or a somewhat new beginning, but perhaps I overreacted when I asserted the above. I still don't think that France in May 1968 had a genuinely revolutionary situation, but what were the prospects for at least more worker-favourable regime change, and what could left parties have done to facilitate that change?

[Mere regime change /= revolutionary period for the working class]

[OhYesIdid]

well, depends on what Left you talk of here. Reformist leftists didn't do anything because it's not on their best interests to do anything, while Radical leftists weren't powerful enough to do much.

[Paulappaul]

I still don't think that France in May 1968 had a genuinely revolutionary situation, but what were the prospects for at least more worker-favourable regime change, and what could left parties have done to facilitate that change?

Hmm I think you have always looked at this situation backwards. May 1968 had a revolutionary situation (i.e. the workers calling for end to the Capitalist system, striking out aganist bureaucracy in all its forms), but such the situation lead to a mere regime change. It is important for militants and theorists today to look at what lead the revolutionary situation into conservative reformism. Ultra Leftists have a tendency of blaming parties, whilst trotskyists and social democrats stress that there wasn't enough party.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Hmm I think you have always looked at this situation backwards. May 1968 had a revolutionary situation (i.e. the workers calling for end to the Capitalist system, striking out aganist bureaucracy in all its forms), but such the situation lead to a mere regime change. It is important for militants and theorists today to look at what lead the revolutionary situation into conservative reformism. Ultra Leftists have a tendency of blaming parties, whilst trotskyists and social democrats stress that there wasn't enough party.

Comrade, I'm sure the regime stayed in place (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle#May_1968). The Gaullists stayed in power, even when de Gaulle left. Anyway, by "revolutionary period," I again refer to Kautsky's four criteria for such, which I posted in the OP, and as you already know "there wasn't enough party" ( ;) ).

[Le Socialiste]

Your assertion that the official, party-oriented "Left" must play an integral role in workers' movements in order to facillitate a revolutionary situation is too narrow in scope. It fails (or refuses) to take into account the self-organizational ability of the working-class in moments when the sociopolitical and material conditions of society make necessary the need for class-based action. With or without the parties of the Left, the working-class must shoulder the burden of bringing to an end the bourgeois state; it must move forward in its fight. To inject the interests of the parliamentary Left is to effectively steer the movement away from the very situation that threatens their position and place within the state. The parties don't facilitate change, they hamper it with their incessant calls for compromise and collaboration.
The leftist parties don't need the political support of the workers in order for the latter to make a general upheaval against the existing order revolutionary. The very act of renouncing - publicly and physically - the symbols and institutions of capitalist production and governance makes for a potentially revolutionary situation. The events in France during the year '68 shouldn't have been focused solely on affecting "worker-favourable regime change," for it doesn't reflect a genuine move away from the conditions that made the need for revolt known. The goal shouldn't be the restoration of the state under a different banner but the realization of a political and revolutionary consciousness on the part of the working-class. When the situation has built up to the point in which the people are going forward with their demands the parties of the Left should step aside (not that they will).

[Die Neue Zeit]

Your assertion that the official, party-oriented "Left" must play an integral role in workers' movements in order to facillitate a revolutionary situation is too narrow in scope. It fails (or refuses) to take into account the self-organizational ability of the working-class in moments when the sociopolitical and material conditions of society make necessary the need for class-based action.

That's not my particular assertion at all. The official, "party-oriented" Left must play an integral role. However, through mass institutions and so much more, it must itself be the worker-class movement and command majority political support from the working class (best measured by voting membership). The French working class didn't have something like the pre-WWI SPD.

[Tim Finnegan]

Assuming that a majority-class party is a precondition of revolution and then identifying only those episodes which fit the bill as revolutionary situations is, quite frankly, begging the question. A truly Marxian approach to the May '68 events would be to establish whether they were a revolutionary situation by examining the events themselves, specifically by identifying whether there was an actual challenge to the political hegemony of the bourgeoisie by a proletariat-for-itself, and from that attempting to infer more general principles. What you are doing, assuming a particular model and then attempting to locate it in history, is the very opposite.

[Le Socialiste]

That's not my particular assertion at all. The official, "party-oriented" Left must play an integral role. However, through mass institutions and so much more, it must itself be the worker-class movement and command majority political support from the working class (best measured by voting membership). The French working class didn't have something like the pre-WWI SPD.

The SPD never intended to meet the demands of its membership, actually working against the growing calls for revolutionary action once in power. The situation in '68 failed, in part, because the official organizations and parties of the left feared the self-mobilization and organization of the people outside their influence, leading the parties to seek help from the government to subdue the uprising. When it became clear that they couldn't gain control over the situation on the ground, they turned to the bastions of reaction for help. It's simply not possible for a workers' party that favors reformist, collaborationist methods to lead the workers in their fight to upend the existing power structures and rebuild society along classless, stateless lines. To do so would be to go against everything said party has been building up to (closer relations with the bourgeois state).

Should the working-class mobilize itself on a mass scale independently of the left's parties - all the more power to them. What you seem to be advocating is the welding of the working-class to the political goals of the party, thus leaving the former at a severe disadvantage. France '68 was revolutionary insofar as it broke with the existing institutions and parties of the bourgeoisie, setting it on a path that was increasingly reliant on the ability of the people to self-organize and work independently of those organizations seeking to return the situation to normalcy. A revolutionary party of the left must renounce reformism and refuse to participate in the parliamentary/democratic structure. It must organize outside of it, reaching out to the working-class in order to build it from the ground up. It serves as a necessary propaganda tool, but anything beyond this purpose sets a dangerous precedent for opportunistic tendencies. The working-class will rise up regardless of whether there's an existing mass party or not. In times of revolutionary upheaval, they certainly have little need for it.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Assuming that a majority-class party is a precondition of revolution and then identifying only those episodes which fit the bill as revolutionary situations is, quite frankly, begging the question. A truly Marxian approach to the May '68 events would be to establish whether they were a revolutionary situation by examining the events themselves, specifically by identifying whether there was an actual challenge to the political hegemony of the bourgeoisie by a proletariat-for-itself, and from that attempting to infer more general principles. What you are doing, assuming a particular model and then attempting to locate it in history, is the very opposite.

Not at all. Every politically revolutionary period is undoubtedly a regime-change period or possible-regime-change period. Not every instance of the latter is the former, however.

My assertion was that there was no French worker-class-for-itself in May 1968 (orthodox Marxism asserts that the content and form here are identical), but that mere regime change was still possible.

[Thirsty Crow]

Assuming that a majority-class party is a precondition of revolution and then identifying only those episodes which fit the bill as revolutionary situations is, quite frankly, begging the question. A truly Marxian approach to the May '68 events would be to establish whether they were a revolutionary situation by examining the events themselves, specifically by identifying whether there was an actual challenge to the political hegemony of the bourgeoisie by a proletariat-for-itself, and from that attempting to infer more general principles. What you are doing, assuming a particular model and then attempting to locate it in history, is the very opposite.
This is absolutely true. It makes me laugh to read about the famous criteria of noble Kautsky, devised probably with strict reference to the historical situation...which didn't last, and certainly didn't last up until May '68. That's basic idealism - deriving a schema from history, and then pronouncing the schema valid for the future as well (abstracting from the real and important differences from historical change).

[Die Neue Zeit]

This is absolutely true. It makes me laugh to read about the famous criteria of noble Kautsky, devised probably with strict reference to the historical situation...which didn't last, and certainly didn't last up until May '68. That's basic idealism - deriving a schema from history, and then pronouncing the schema valid for the future as well (abstracting from the real and important differences from historical change).

I think that's a bit hypocritical. Spontaneists, councilists, and other "ad-hoc organs"-ists "derive their schema from history and pronounce the schema valid for the future as well," despite the more blatant track record of repeated failure. Check out my newest blog.

[RED DAVE]

My assertion was that there was no French worker-class-for-itself in May 1968 (orthodox Marxism asserts that the content and form here are identical), but that mere regime change was still possible.And my assertion, based on reading everything available in English at the time, plus having had friends who were there, plus having had a brother who was there, (Plus I wrote an unpublished book about it.) is that you are dead wrong.

Vast sections of the French working class were on the move, engaged in a general strike in industry, trasportation and communiction, fully conscious of their position as workers under capitalism and as the agency for the society to come. In this they were also backed by a huge, radical petty-bourgeois element. The armed forces were not reliable to put down the strike.

If ever there was a fully revolutionary situation in Western Europe post-WWII, this was it.

RED DAVE

[Tim Finnegan]

I think that's a bit hypocritical. Spontaneists, councilists, and other "ad-hoc organs"-ists "derive their schema from history and pronounce the schema valid for the future as well," despite the more blatant track record of repeated failure. Check out my newest blog.
How so? What "councilists" have argued for the direct replication of an historically specific form of organisation, rather than simply for "councils" in the extremely general sense of mass assemblies? Some, perhaps, have placed too much emphasis on factory committees in an era which has seen a shift to smaller, less concentrated workforces, but that's a failure to update their analysis rather than an ahistorical schema.

[RED DAVE]

The official, "party-oriented" Left must play an integral role.Why? Because you say so? Are you talking about labor parties, social democratic parties or stalinist parties? If we wait for them, the revolution will never take place. These parties have been shown, over and over again, to be counter-revolutionary.


However, through mass institutions and so much more, it must itself be the worker-class movement and command majority political support from the working class (best measured by voting membership).This will never happen. The French PCF was just the kind of hegemonic party you describe, with the entire panoply of education and cultural institutions you crow about. This did not stop it from perpetrating one of the worst sell-outs of the 20th Century.


The French working class didn't have something like the pre-WWI SPD.For which they should be eternally grateful.

How you can tout the infamous pre-WWI SPD, a party that engaged, like the PCF, in massive sell-outs, is beyond me.

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

How so? What "councilists" have argued for the direct replication of an historically specific form of organisation, rather than simply for "councils" in the extremely general sense of mass assemblies? Some, perhaps, have placed too much emphasis on factory committees in an era which has seen a shift to smaller, less concentrated workforces, but that's a failure to update their analysis rather than an ahistorical schema.

Extreme generalizations haven't benefitted the working class much, whether it's Marx's "party" or the councilist chorus of "councils."

Look, I'm not calling for a direct replication of the SPD model today, either. It had a glossed-over "dark side," so to speak:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=5kkQyWIFCbIC&pg=PA50&dq=spd%20discipline%20choir&hl=en&ei=QMTaTZWKOs_PiAKWwsiCCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=spd%20discipline%20choir&f=false

http://www.revleft.com/vb/proletarian-demographic-minorities-t155191/index.html


This will never happen. The French PCF was just the kind of hegemonic party you describe, with the entire panoply of education and cultural institutions you crow about.

Links?

[In and of itself, if you're right, the PCF should be commended for that panoply.]

[RED DAVE]

I still don't think that France in May 1968 had a genuinely revolutionary situationAre you convinced, finally, that you're wrong in this regard?

RED DAVE